The Ingenuity of the Rogatchover | Rabbi Shlomo Cynamon

I once heard a wonderful story. When the great Rogatchover was a teenager, he was a prodigy, a known genius, who was known in the world that he knew כל התורה כולה. He passed through the town of Gerre, and he was around 17 years old, and they brought him to talk in learning with the great and holy Sfas Emes, the Gerre Rebbe. They stood and there were thousands of Chasidim enthralled by the conversation and they were talking through כל התורה כולה, from Bavli to Yerushalmi to Toras Kohanim to Rambams. And for the half hour, there were Chasidim standing and watching the venerated Sfas Emes talking to this young teenage prodigy, the future Rogatchover Gaon. After the Rogatchover left, the Chasidim turned to the Rebbe, the Sfas Emes, and they said to him, To what do you attribute, what do you say about this great גאונות, this great memory, this tremendous young Talmid Chacham? And the Sfas Emes said: I would venture to say he has tremendous Shemiras Einayim. He must watch his eyes with a tremendous steadfastness. The Chasidim looked on in wonder. They thought he would say something about his התמדת התורה, his genius, his diligence in learning Torah, and instead he commented on his Shemiras Einayim? The Sfas Emes explained and he said, The reason is the amount of Torah and the grasp and the memory that this young teenager has has to be a Segulah. It's a phenomena. It has to be something not explicable. And the Sfas Emes says: The Segulah is in the Torah. What we say at the end of קריאת שמע, We see from there that the great power of זיכרון, this connection of זיכרון התורה, is connected intrinsically with He says: So it's clear that the Rogatchover, this young lad, this young teenager, must be שמור, he must be steadfast and careful in what he sees. That was the comment of the Sfas Emes. All of us learn Torah. All of us look to be קובע עיתים לתורה. We look before we go to work, after we come back from work, we're looking to have that Kesher with לימוד התורה, to have a stronger Kesher, to have a stronger insulation, a stronger protection, that all comes through If we're מייחד, if we exclusively try to make our eyes Eyes of Torah, that we know we're special. Our eyes are made to be able to see and to understand the תורת השם, the דבר השם, that's the לא תתורו. And we'll be zoche to the למען תזכרו.